Which to use
“forage” is a noun and “formaté” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #16,625
- “forage” frequency rank
- #48,537
- “formaté” frequency rank
- 65162
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | forage | formaté |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de forer ou résultat de cette action. | Participe passé masculin singulier de formater. |
Where the eye mixes forage and formaté
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. forage runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against formaté's 7 (CVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between forage and formaté
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: forage is \fɔ.ʁaʒ\ while formaté is \fɔʁ.ma.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65162, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
forage is recorded at frequency rank #16,625, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔ.ʁaʒ\. formaté is at rank #48,537, tagged as averb, pronounced \fɔʁ.ma.te\.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 65162, this pair ranks #73,570 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of forage vs formaté
Shared letters: afor. Private to "forage": eg. Private to "formaté": mté.
"forage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "formaté" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- forage ← fforage · foarge · foraeg · foragge · forgae · forrage · froage · ofrage
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "forage" for "formaté" ever safe?
Which is more common, "forage" or "formaté"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "forage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "formaté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #73,570 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "forage" and "formaté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "formaté vs formater". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #73,570 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.